Craig Mimm: hardnosed people who are doing that have come to the conclusion that we must move to a non-fossil fuel energy economy.

I have no problem with that & I agree with the move. Unfortunately the World is still at the Model T Ford stage of development & the Greenies think we are at the Tesla stage. There-in lies the problem.

There are a lot of factors to consider apart from the Electrical side of the debate into renewables. The Greenies want to shut down every Coalmine in the World "NOW" & it can't be done. I that happened the entire world economy would cease within 6 months or less. The Greenies worry about people in 3rd. World Countries starving. The entire World would be starving. Of course, naturally, it wouldn't be the Greenies fault.

There is a lot of Technological progress needed & Money needs to be poured into Research & Development, not only from the Universities but from Private Enterprise & Amateurs. It's usually Amateurs that usually come up with the goods that work, but their efforts are usually dismissed by the Universities because of jealously & they might miss out on funding.

Remember it was Amateurs that built the first heaver than air aircraft when Experts said it could never happen.

Hi Jayb,
The problem is that the discussion, like so many discussions in which politics becomes involved, has been turned into a debate. That's no surprise, very few politicians have not grown up with debating as a part of their education.

In a debate, the question asked is deliberately narrow and the purpose is to make points that the opponent cannot easily counter within the terms of the question or if that can't be achieved, to try to discredit the opponent using rhetorical tactics. A few of those tactics have been illustrated in this thread. The purpose of a debate is not to arrive at a solution to a problem, having regard to a broad range of possible inputs and outputs, it is to produce a "winner" and a "loser".

We need more discussions and fewer debates about a whole range of things.

The drum is from someone who knows the operators, and it was a deliberate
decision to disconnect the wind turbines to protect them.

Aidan,

That was a typo, as the calculation was based on 10 gigawatts. (note that Aus demand is 35GW) The calculation was based on developed existing technologies such as solar PV gas back up.

Pump storage is a wonderful peak clipping technology that widely used in the EU, and a fine example is the Snowy Mountains scheme. However, it does require hilly terrain and dams close by that are at significantly different heights, which is very limited in Aus. Note the Franklin dam hydro scheme was blocked by the greens.

1) Solar thermal CSP is an emerging technology but presently is struggling to compete against solar PV.
-CSP with storage has a few trial sites, but the costs of generation (without subsidies) is close to $400 per MWhr or about 4x wind power 5x gas, and has a way to go before becoming commercially viable,
2) Wind is far cheaper (and nuclear about the same price as wind)
3) They still consume some power, and much more gas back up would be needed.
4) Doing what? What can run on occasional power for a couple of times a week?
5) 20 years is standard for that type of rotating equipment. The most optimistic don't go past 25yrs, and many fail before that. There are over 100 000 obsolete turbines that have been abandoned. Rebuilds usually only reuse part of the foundation.
6) See 1)

Replacing large coal fired stations with Nuclear would be the cheapest, quickest, safest, and most reliable.

Large scale heavy industries such as the one I work for buy power at about 7c/kWhr (incl generation and distribution) and an increase to say 20c/kWhr would wipe out any profits and close not only our new highly efficient plant, but entire industries.

Ah, now I begin to understand your obsession with baseload, Shadow Minister, you're a huckster for a firm that is subsisised by generation providers (at the cost of all other users) to artificially maintain loads at a high level during non-peak times. Rio, perhaps, or is it BHP Billiton? Perhaps its GJames Aluminium; it can't be Comalco, the Geelong smelter is history.

Why didn't you say so earlier?

I ran a business that consumed quite a lot of power - we paid around $1000 a month. Of course, that was at a rate of 23 cents per kWh in 2011, that had increased year on year every year from a rate of 12.9c IIRC in 2005. I currently pay about 27c per kWh. It must be nice to be in a protected industry...

I'm sure you must have references to support your claim, perhaps you might be good enough to provide them. After all, I went to the trouble of downloading a document to email to you (which you didn't thank me for, unsurprisingly).

For those who are still reading, these are the standing offer prices for business from Energy Australia

https://secure.energyaustralia.com.au/EnergyPriceFactSheets/Docs/EPFS/E_B_Q_BSOT_EX_29-09-2016.pdf

Anyone is welcome to check that the best offered rate is 15.4c/kWh for a dedicated HV circuit (paid for by the customer at time of installation) from the substation.

For the majority of those in business the off-peak prices are approximately 22c/kWh, plus supply charges. Peak prices range up from 26.5c +/kWh